should we call it Marvney? or Disnel?

No one knows just how the Marvel-Disney merger (we're calling it that rather than "assimilation") will change our beloved comics, but we've got a few guesses. Here are the top ten:

10. Tony Stark reveals to Jack Sparrow where all the rum has gone.

9. MAX unveils Who Punished Roger Rabbit?, a charming buddy comedy in which Frank Castle's new partner teaches him to kill 'em with kindness.

8. Casual Friday introduced to Marvel bullpen so the editors can leave off the mouse ears once a week.

7. Scrooge McDuck goes swimming in Norman Osborn's money.

6. The official battle cry becomes, "A-V-E-N-G-E-R-S A-S-S-E-M-B-L-E."

5. Spokespeople deny rumors that Stan Lee has been cryogenically frozen. Mr. Lee is unavailable for comment.

4. New animatronic children in the "It's a Small World After All" feature fur, steel skin, and telekinesis.

3. Rictor and Shatterstar are introduced to Exodus International.

2. Tobey Maguire is replaced with Zac Efron in Spider-Man 4. Critics rave.

1. Wolverine becomes a member of Goof Troop, Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and the Disney Princesses

- JC & RD

[Yes, we know Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man, but we like Zac Efron. Shutup. - RD]

[JC adds, "Tell them he was in Firefly!" - RD]

Marvel 1985

I liked Mark Millar's Marvel 1985, but I wanted to love it and could never quite get there. It needed to be either half as long or twice as deep. The story had quite a few great character moments, but just not enough plot to sustain six issues.

The setting is "our universe" in 1985. Toby, a 13-year-old comic fan, starts seeing Marvel villains creeping around his town. Over the course of the story, the villains start killing people, so Toby has to figure out how they came through from the comic world and how to get the Marvel heroes to come over and fix the problem.

At home, Toby is facing some not uncommon problems. His parents are divorced, and though his stepdad is an okay fella, Toby is very close to his father, a comic-book-reading slightly bummish former musician. There are hints that Toby's mom chose her new husband for his ambition, which gets the family things like a new car and a possible move to England, but Toby is upset with the possibility of leaving his father behind.

The entire story could have been three really great issues rather than six pretty good ones. The story sags in the middle, with scenes of villains running around and Toby hanging out with his dad, but nothing really moving the plot along. The heroes appear at the end and have their brief moment of glory, making everything all right as is their function. Toby's true hero, of course, is his father, and the story spends a lot of time reassuring the reader that even shiftless dads without full custody can be positive male role models. I guess.

The ending is confusing on a couple of levels, rather typically for a Millar story. Toby's dad gets hurt badly, and the only chance for him to live is by tossing him into the Marvel Universe, where mortal wounds aren't always mortal and anyone can come out of a decades-long coma in perfect health. What is unclear is why Toby as an adult would feel the need to manufacture a love life for his dad (as amusing as the choice of obscure-Marvel-supporting-character-girlfriend may be), or why 13-year-old Toby didn't just grab his spiral notebook as soon as he got home to write the ending immediately. Apparently the happy ending is only valid if created by a sanctioned Marvel writer.

Despite the flaws, I enjoyed the concept and some of the exploration. I also appreciated the touches of '80s realism, like He-Man t-shirts and the comic shop dude who drinks from a disappearing TARDIS mug - much like the one I got sometime in 1985 and still have today. [It's in the sink. Not dishwasher safe. - RD]

- JC

Secret Invasion #2

In Issue #2 of Secret Invasion (Brian Michael Bendis), Hawkeye apparently gets his wife back. Mockingbird was killed off many years ago (in reader time, at least), but returns in the midst of the Skrull takeover. So, like anyone faced with a "Would the Real Superhero Please Stand Up?" Hawkeye asks her about something that only his real wife would know, something they never shared with anyone else. He asks his wife to remind him of the significance of October 12.

"The baby we lost, Mockingbird replies, "October 12th would have been the birthday. It... would have been a nice day."

What I found fascinating was not the fact that Hawkeye used the date as his password question, but that these people, who have been through one of the most horrible things that a couple can experience, don't talk about it as something that haunts them. They just say, "It would have been a nice day."

When I look at characterization that works, I see superheros as people that we want to be. It's not just that they have the powers and the vision that we wish we had; they find the strength to put personal tragedies in perspective. I think most people could be consumed with grief at losing a child, and though it's clear that the couple were deeply saddened by their loss, they chose to focus on how happy they would have been. It's a subtle but vast distinction.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird have been described as the Mr. and Mrs. Smith of the Marvel universe. I don't know these characters particularly well yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing where they go from here.

And hey, it's nice to see Marvel un-kill a marriage for once.

- JC

Secret Invasion

The series is a culmination of several plot lines in recent Marvel books where the Skrulls - shape-changing aliens - have been working for a while to take over the Earth, and have been replacing various superheroes to do this. There's a really neat two-page spread where you see Times Square and all these TV screens with Skrull versions of politicians, superheroes, and TV personalities. They claim to have been observing the poverty and war on Earth for some time, and have now come to help us fix our problems.

Their announcement includes the statement, "Once we have settled in, we will begin replacing your energy sources and your borders. All areas of modern conflict will be moot." It's every invasion in human history, with the invaders trying to convince the invaded that they were being liberated. But like in our own recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Skrulls have an ulterior motive after all - their own resources are limited and they're hoping to settle some of their population to Earth. They don't have the humility to simply ask for what they need, they must bring their religion and intelligence to make the planet a better place. They're doing Earth a favor - one that humans don't necessarily want or need.

The question becomes which of the invaders truly believe they're doing the right thing, and which of them know that their population needs the resources Earth represents - and how much of either of those viewpoints justifies what they're doing.

Also, though the point isn't made overtly, the final issue seems to imply that it's actually President G.W. Bush who puts Norman Osborn in the position of power that leads to Dark Reign. As Marvel likes to reflect the current political situation, and they're about to do their Obama inauguration thing, it suggests that W. is the president who hands Norman, and by extension a cabal of supervillians, the keys to the kingdom. It's a nice bold stroke.

- JC

Marvel vs. DC

I like my stories to be, like, interesting, which is why I'm not into DC Comics.

I grew up watching classic comic movies, like Batman and Superman, but even then I was disappointed in the static characterizations they tended to have. Also, really lame "secret" identities. Bruce Wayne's chiseled jaw was pretty distinct, even under a cowl, but a pair of glasses? Really? That's all you could come up with? And then you're photographed all the time in the newspaper you work for and they STILL don't know it's you? Are they putting stupid in the Metropolis water supply? And these guys are totally badass, why are they keeping it a secret? Bruce is a billionaire; if he came out, he'd just be seen as eccentric and he'd be asked to throw benefit parties in costume. Superman is freaking SUPERMAN. What's the point of hiding?

I used to watch the X-Men after school and I really dug it. For one thing, it was easier to play on the playground - you got your Cyclops (the bossy kid) and your Jean Grey (the prissy girl) and your Wolverine (the slightly aggressive kid who grinned a lot) and your Jubilee (whoever was wearing a yellow raincoat that day). Seriously, try to play Superman and you get a lot of fights over who's Clark and who's Lois and everyone else sort of stands around shouting for help and then you get in trouble with the teachers. For another thing, they were a family. Not just a team or an ensemble, but they had relationships like we understood - Scott and Jean were a couple, Logan and Jubilee had this parent/kid thing going on, it wasn't the vague unresolved tension between Clark and Lois. And they weren't really hiding who they were. They were mutants, and sometimes they got crap for it, but everyone knew that they were different.

But it was Spider-Man (JC forced me to correct this from "Spiderman," which is WHAT STAN LEE CALLED HIM I HAVE SEEN THE PAGE SCANS) who got me into real comics, because Bendis, as previously stated, rocks. I read Ultimate Spidey #1 through #115 in three days as JC bagged and alphabetized his collection last spring break. Peter is, above all else, a relationships man - and Bendis makes that very personal. Then I had to read some New Avengers, some Ultimate X-Men, Pulse, Runaways, Y the Last Man, Power Pack, Buffy season 8... yeah.

I haven't bothered to get into the subtleties of recent DC canon, though JC assures me they've gotten more complex, because I can't shake that childhood impression of super powers in the form of men. I like to read about men who just so happen to be super.

- RD